FIRST BUSH-APPOINTED CHAIR OF U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION SPEAKS OUT.

EXCLUSIVE: FIRST BUSH-APPOINTED CHAIR OF U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION SAYS 'NO STANDARDS' FOR E-VOTING DEVICES, SYSTEM 'RIPE FOR STEALING ELECTIONS'

The BRAD BLOG has obtained an EXCLUSIVE partial transcript from a recent, unaired interview by a major broadcast network with former U.S. Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) chair Rev. DeForest Soaries.
Soaries was appointed by George W. Bush as the first chair of the commission created by the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in the wake of the 2000 Presidential Election Debacle. In the interview, available here for the first time, Soaries excoriates both Congress and the White House, referring to their dedication to reforming American election issues as "a charade" and "a travesty," and says the system now in place is "ripe for stealing elections and for fraud."
Having resigned from the commission in April of 2005, Soaries goes on to explain that he believes he was "deceived" by both the White House and Congress, and that neither were ever "really serious about election reform."

TRANSCRIPT FROM UNAIRED SEPTEMBER 2006 INTERVIEW

Rev. DeForest Soaries, Former U.S. Elections Assistance Commission Chair

"I resigned, effective April 30th, 2005 after having served through the 2004 elections and concluding that neither the White House nor the Congress was really serious about election reform.
"Florida 2000, the whole world watched America express embarrassment over the status of the Election Assistance Administration and by November 2004, we had not only not made significant changes but in many ways, had made things worse through the passage of the Help America Vote Act."After Florida 2000, the politicians were all on the soap box promising the country that we would 'repair' the problem and the problem was much more than hanging chads and lever machines. For instance, the Help America Vote Act mandates that an electronic voting machine be in every precinct in the country and that mandate preceded the funding of research necessary to ensure that there is some prototype or standard for such machines. If every home were mandated to have a microwave without the prerequisite kinds of safety standards for microwaves, it would be considered scandalous. But we know more today about how to build a machine to take pictures of rocks on Mars than we know about how to build a machine to safeguard the American right to vote. More on the story.